Remote audio recording typically involves several distinct steps, and several parties. The steps are auditions, signing a contract, scheduling a session, recording a performance, delivering recorded takes to an editor or other recipient, paying for services rendered, and reconciling accounts. Typically, there are a minimum of three parties involved, fulfilling several roles including: the artist who performs; the agent who manages the artists' affairs; the producer who handles business and logistical affairs for the production; the director who provides instruction to the artist; the engineer who manages technical setup and operation of the recording equipment; the editor or technician who manipulates the resulting audio files; the sponsor of the project who may be an advertising client, television or studio executive, or corporate sponsor. In many cases one individual will perform several of these roles.
In the endeavor of voice-over, video and music production for audio or audio-visual media, such as commercials, advertisements, television programs, movies, and the like, there are a variety of costs in completing such productions. These costs generally include studio rental, travel expenses, and salaries for production staff and the talent employed for the production.
In order to reduce such costs, and with the advent of high-speed data transfer over computer networks, remote recording for voice-over production has been gaining wider acceptance. Remote recording is generally accomplished today using any of a variety of available technologies. In one example used primarily in remote audio production, dedicated integrated services digital network (ISDN) lines are provided between the location of production staff and a separate location for the hired talent for purposes of communication. This high-end approach has been used for over a decade, and allows full duplex communication (2-way talking) thru the ISDN lines to manage the production. Such methods allow multiple tracks of a sound mix so that talent may read a script while hearing audio tracks in their headphone. However, such setups require expensive encoding and decoding hardware on each end, and expensive dedicated data lines from a telecommunications provider. In the case of an audiovisual production, such setups also do not allow the talent to read the script while watching corresponding video (“read to picture”). In addition, recordings are generally made at the receiving end, usually a professional sound studio, and not in the talent's home or preferred location; this means the audio must be compressed to accommodate bandwidth limitations and can lead to lost takes if the connection is disrupted.
Another existing remote production setup involves a phone session employing file transfer protocol (FTP). In recent years, this has become a common method for remote recording. In this setup, the producer or director may call the talent on the phone and direct him or her over the phone. The talent then records the tracks on, for example, his home computer and later transfers the resulting recordings to production staff in one of several ways. However, the size of the resulting file may oftentimes be too large to send via FTP, and so the talent must edit out the unwanted parts, name the resulting file appropriately and then upload the file to a server so the Producer/Director can download it.
A still further remote production setup involves initiating a phone session for purposes of direction and management, recording the session in an MP3 or other digital format, and e-mailing or otherwise transmitting the recorded session to production staff. MP3 compression allows for file sizes that are small enough to be e-mailed or otherwise easily transferred over the Internet. However, such audio compression formats may reduce the sound quality of the recorded session, and therefore be inappropriate for use in high-quality productions.
Some producers have opted for unsupervised voice-over/music work with remote productions. In such cases, the producer/director will e-mail or fax a script to the talent, who will read it without being directed, and will then send the recorded tracks back by FTP, e-mail, or other appropriate method as described previously. However, unsupervised sessions may result in recordings which, upon review by the production staff, prove unsatisfactory for creative or technical reasons and so such methods have the potential to actually increase costs when remedial recording sessions are necessary.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for remote voice-over/music production and management that addresses certain problems in existing methods and technologies.